carefully to
scrutinise the German claims and its own way of regarding them, and to
be quite sure, before entering into a dispute, that its own views are
right and Germany's views wrong, as well as that it has the means, in
case of conflict, of carrying on with success a war against the German
Empire.

If then England is to enter into a quarrel with Germany or any other
State, let her people take care that it arises from no obscure issue
about which they may disagree among themselves, but from some palpable
wrong done by the other Power, some wrong which calls upon them to
resist it with all their might.

The case alleged against Germany is that she is too strong, so strong in
herself that no Power in Europe can stand up against her, and so sure of
the assistance of her ally, Austria, to say nothing of the other ally,
Italy, that there is at this moment no combination that will venture to
oppose the Triple Alliance. In other words, Germany is thought to have
acquired an ascendency in Europe which she may at any moment attempt to
convert into supremacy. Great Britain is thought of, at any rate by her
own people, as the traditional opponent of any such supremacy on the
Continent, so that if she were strong enough it might be her function to
be the chief antagonist of a German ascendency or supremacy, though the
doubt whether she is strong enough prevents her from fulfilling this
role.

But there is another side to the case. The opinion has long been
expressed by German writers and is very widespread in Germany that it is
Great Britain that claims an ascendency or supremacy, and that Germany
in opposing that supremacy is making herself the champion of the
European cause of the independence of States. This German idea was
plainly expressed twenty-five years ago by the German historian Wilhelm
Mueller, who wrote in a review of the year 1884: "England was the
opponent of all the maritime Powers of Europe. She had for decades
assumed at sea the same dictatorial attitude as France had maintained
upon land under Louis XIV. and Napoleon I. The years 1870-1871 broke the
French spell; the year 1884 has shown England that the times of her
maritime imperialism also are over, and that if she does not renounce it
of her own free will, an 1870 will come for the English spell too. It is
true, England need not fear any single maritime Power, but only a
coalition of them all; and hitherto she has done all she can to call up
such a coal